Sunday, 20 February 2011

My Edits of 'Wondrous Oblivion' Scenes.

I just finished a 3 week module on 'creative editing'. We were given rushes from different scenes from two movies: Wondrous Oblivion and I Want Candy. Watching the movies after editing these scenes, I believe that the majority of the students in my class could've done a better job than what was used on screen. I do understand that we aren't editing the whole movie and that leads us to spending more time on the scenes and also we aren't cutting lines as we don't have time limit for the scenes, unlike in feature films. I will put the I Want Candy scene in a different post as I think there is a limit to how many videos you can upload on one post. Or my laptop is being stupid and not letting me.



This is a scene from Wondrous Oblivion called Noisy Neighbours. The annoying thing about editing this scene as the boy is a really crap actor and when watching the rushes you can hear the crew members talking to him and telling him what to do. So I had to change the audio tracks a couple of times. Also when the mother is looking up she is listening to the music the neighbours are playing. We weren't allowed to put music so can just hear thuds going on.






The shots we were given were all close-ups and we had to imagine where each person is sitting without being given a master shot (I don't even think the director shot a master shot). The only issue I have with these rushes is that the little girl looks out of place and it's really annoying but we weren't given any other shots. I guess you have to make do with what you have as an editor. This editing exercise was to focus on camera and eye line.




This is another scene from Wondrous Oblivion (my school produced it, that's why we had access to the rushes and that's why so many of our exercises are based on this movie). Had to play around with the audio levels as they were a bit wonky.


Again, the videos had to be compressed in order to put them online that's why the look shite. I still hope you enjoy them! 

Friday, 18 February 2011

April Short Film

On the 9th and 10th of April I will be shooting my first proper short film as a Met Film School student. I've created other short films before the MFS but they're all pretty much crap. If they were on my laptop in London I would've love to share it with you guys but unfortunately they're back home in Dubai. 

My short film is about a girl called Katherine, who has an overdose on painkillers and is rushed to the hospital. The film takes place in a therapists office. There's about to be an interrogation to see whether or not Katherine is in danger to herself and whether or not she needs to be put into a rehabilitation. Katherine isn't suicidal, however she does have a problem. Her boyfriend is a con artist and they're constantly skipping town and changing their identities which leaves Katherine with an identity crisis. She doesn't know who she is anymore. Katherine however doesn't realize she has an identity problem, and she thinks she is being very clever into tricking the therapist into thinking she is 'normal'. With each an every question the therapist asks Katherine begins to realize how she doesn't have a sense of who she is and slowly breaks down.

So yeah, that's my story in a nutshell. The short film will be shot on a 7D camera and will be conveyed through flashbacks and voiceovers. I have a thing for voiceovers and apparently that's not a good thing. I don't know why though. Some of my favorite films have voiceovers - Kick-ass, American Beauty, Forrest Gump, Fight Club, Adaptation, Shawshank Redemption and the list goes on.

I'll post my script online later. I've only done the second draft so far but I'll still post it up.


Monday, 14 February 2011

Vaseline Commercial

Sometime in December 2010 we were told to create and shoot a commercial of some sort. There were no rules, no guidelines, no basic point to start off with (like our other exercises). We were just told to go shoot a commercial about anything. The only rule we had was that it had to be 30-60 seconds long and we had only* about 3 hours to shoot it.

I decided to do a commercial on a product I truly believe in (cheesy, I know). If I'm going to make a commercial/an attempt to make the audience buy my product, then it has to be something I actually use. Therefore I decided to do it on Vaseline Lip Balm Therapy. I use this lip balm every single day (well now I have to because I bought like 50). And no, Vaseline didn't pay me to say this/make this commercial. I'm pretty sure that if they catch me posting this around the internet they will sue me. In the events that Vaseline does see this and are pissed off I should say that USE VASELINE, THEY KEEP YOUR LIPS MOIST AND SMOOTH AND SEDUCTIVE. THEY'RE ALSO GOOD FOR A NUMBER OF THINGS SUCH AS LUBE AND PRESERVING FOOTBALLS.

I needed girls and a make-up artist. Crew we're provided by the school (my class mates). I posted up an advert on www.castingcallpro.com and within a day 20 plus girls replied to me saying that they were willing to be in my student commercial for no money (win!). I couldn't use all 20 girls so I picked the girls that were the most dedicated. By dedicated I mean they answered and replied to my messages. I had to pay for the make-up artist but it was totally worth it. All in all I spent about 85 quid on this commercial.

Here it is:


Some of the quality was lost 'cause I had to compress it to put it online. Sucks, I know.

I directed, edited and wrote it. 

Enjoy!

T.Tchab's out!

*I say 'only' because my teacher used that word. Apparently, 3 hours for a 30-60 second commercial is not enough. I agreed with her at the time but then it took me a bit less than 2 hours to shoot. 

Sunday, 13 February 2011

Some kind of video

My buddy asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would appear in a commercial. I'm not too sure if it was a commercial but it was something that displayed fashion around the world... I guess. I suppose it was just a fashion video that focused on playing around with green screen. It was shot by students who go to SAE.

Not one of my proudest work (I am after all a wannabe filmmaker, not an actress) but it was still quite fun. Anyways, I live in Ealing and I find any excuse possible to get to central London.




I'm the Asian in the velvet body con dress with half sleeves. I love the part where I'm laughing hysterically and my nostrils have widen to about 5cms. I'm not even sure I knew they were rolling the camera at that point. 


Saturday, 12 February 2011

Introduction

This is my first blog ever. I'm going to use this blog to share information about myself, obviously, and to display my film creations. Whether it be my editing, acting, directing, writing - whatever - I'm going to put it out here to basically show what I've created and to publicize myself.

But first, let me introduce myself.

My name is Tara Tchablakian. I'm 18 years old. Currently living in London and studying at the Met Film School. I'm from Dubai. My mom's Singaporean and my pops' is Lebanese-Armenian. I've lived in Saudi and France but most of my life in Dubai (therefore I call it home). Before I wanted to do film I wanted to become an artist but then my school introduced "IB film" and decided to go for that. I instantly fell in love with the subject and found that doing homework for this class is more like a hobby than actual homework. So from about 16-18 I concentrated on becoming a filmmaker. I first wanted to do media studies and focus in the area before I made films but over the summer of 2010 I decided that I wanted to just focus on creating films and enrolled in the Met Film School. I've done a number of projects since I've been here and I'm willing to share them with you. Even my works that I've done before uni (as crap as they may be). 

I hope you enjoy this blog!

T Tchab